sooner, that you would come hither on Monday evening; and you may from hence as easily go by the Bath coach next morning as from Abury.-We met at a gentleman's where we dined to-day two Mr. Nicholas's, one a brother of Mr. William Nicholas, the latter his cousin, who intends to call upon you at Abury next Sunday after dinner. We all congratulate your pleasure at the Camp. I should have told you before that Boadicea's service was sent to the Druid; but I must add, not the Boadicea that was ravished.—I am your very affectionate brother and humble servant, CYNGETORIX." "SIR, July 15, 1723.

"Thanks in abundance for your Letter, and design of the Abury avenues; you have sent me just what I wanted. To-morrow, I trust, we shall all be in motion *. I wish you a good journey to the Bath; and hope your harvest for this season is not yet over, but that you will discover more Antiquities, and add to the great treasures you have already acquired; while I shall, if I am not deceived, besides Maiden Castle and Dorchester Amphitheatre, visit the Camp between Sherbourne and Ilchester; and, when I come back to this place, I shall go to Oldbury Hill Camp: You have described it so agreeably that I shall have no peace of mind if I leave this place without seeing it; and, if I do not flatter myself, I shall carry home some good pieces of Antiquity to add to my collection.-Yesterday Mr. Solley+, an acquaintance of yours, and a great traveller, dined with Lord Hartford. The Bishop of Salisbury has presented him to Preshutt Vicarage; this was the first day of his coming here. I think he is a very ingenious man; he has a Collection of Antient Medals, which I shall see when I am in town.-I need not send my Lord Hartford's compliments, he intending to write to you himself: but I am charged with my Lady's. You sent her the benedictions of a Druid, and I am to let you know that she sends you those of the Cumaan Sibyl; and the blessings of such a Sibyl must be sweet. Captain Edwards is your humble servant, and is not afraid to meet you again on Silbury Hill over another punch-bowl. Mr. Clavering does not only present you with his service, but with a petition too; and desires the venerable Druid, who is Priest of the Temple of the Sun, will prefer him to the Priesthood of the Moon. And for Pokey, if you will accept her compliments, her bones will rattle for joy in her skin, for she has no flesh to interrupt them. Lady Betty will not be left out, but adds her service to you; and, if 1 had room, I should have a great deal to say from her; but I must conclude, who am, with a great deal of sincerity, dear Brother, your most humble servant, WINCHILSEA." Eastwell, Oct. 3, 1723.

"MY DEAR Druid, "You cannot imagine with what pleasure received your Letter: I longed for your return to London, where you are within

* I have a neat, finished Drawing of "Thomas Hayward, esq. owner of Stonehouse, who died in 1724-Ad vivum designavit W. S. præsente illustr. Com. Winchilsea, 4 Jul. 1723."

Rev. Joseph Solley, of Chelsea. He was of Bene't College, Cambridge, M. A. 1718; elected F. S. A. 1724.

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reach of a correspondence, though I shall be impatient till I can have a personal conversation with you, and therefore shall leave the country as soon as possible for me; but not quite so soon as I would do, for I must pick up a few rents, to maintain me in my winter quarters in town. Your Letter is full of obliging expressions; but believe me, Sir, if I was any way agreeable to you, I am sure, I reaped a great deal of pleasure, and profit too, by your conversations and instructions.

"I am extremely obliged to you, and my very valuable friend Dr. Hales, for remembering me at your College; as I am to Mr. Gale, whose health, with yours, is drunk every day by me and Mr. Creyk*, a very worthy Clergyman, who is with me. I wish I could have gone with you through all your progress from Carvilium; but I shall soon see some of the fruits of your travels; and shall be very thankful for your design of the Dorchester Amphitheatre. Though I have not been so well employed as you since we parted, I have not been idle; and, though I may trouble you with too long an epistle, I must give my dear Chindonax some account of what I have seen, and what I have got.

"In my way from London to this place, I drove into a field near Newington (at this day called Crock Field), famous for the vast number of urns and other earthen ware formerly dug out of it, as we learn from Dr. Meric Casaubon, and after him from Mr. Burton in his Itinerary. I found there two or three bits of urns, and of Roman tiles, which have been turned up by the plough but, since I was there, nine men have dug for me three days, without success; though I hear, something, I know not what, was found the last day, which is kept for me.

"To make amends for my ill success here, I have had some things brought me which were found in East Kent; viz. two large pateras of the fine red earth; two dishes, something like large coffee-cups (but wider at the mouth), and in the bottom of one of them this inscription, CALETI M. for caleti manibus; these too are of the fine red earth. These were found some years since by the Whitstable men, dredging for oysters, near Reculver. I have too a piece of a broken vessel found at Richborough. And he brought me several other picces of Antiquity, which were some years ago dug out of a barrow in East Kent, and there seem to be some of them Roman, and others Saxon; and such the late Dr. Batteley told me he had seen dug out of one barrow in that County. Mine are as follow:-A large fibula of copper, but wrought and two strings of beads; one of amber, with some of blue glass among them; the other of glass gilt, most round, but some of them long. I take these to be Roman. I have a piece of a skull found there.

:

"Those which I think may be Saxon are, the head of an axe, sharp before, and very thick behind; it is iron, and weighs one

John Creyk, of St. John's College, Cambridge; B A. 1711; M. A. 1782; elected F. S. A. 1723-4-Another John Creyk, of St. John's also; B. A. 1734; M. A. 1748 (probably son of the former); obtained the Vicarage of Eastwell in 1742; and died in 1745.

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pound and half and a quarter of an ounce :-and there is a little round fibula of copper gilt, on which a head (Saxon, I think) is carved (not engraved, or cast).-There was a sword and helmet, and many other things, found there; some of which I think I shall procure, besides those above mentioned, which I have already. Besides these, I have found something worth your knowledge at home, in my park. I do not know whether you remember your way from Eastwell to Beamstone gate (in your road to Charing). On the right hand of Beamstone lawn, the top of the hill is covered with woods, from whence the hill slopes gently down to the plain; but towards the bottom the slope is steep, and a sort of bank runs a great way along the plain from N.W. by W. to S E. by E.; and the bank faces S. by W. at 10 degrees, or thereabouts, (without regard to the variation of the compass). Conies have burrowed in this bank; and at the further end of it, almost over against Beamstone house, my keeper found two or three pieces of urns, by the mouth of a coney-hole newly turned out by a rabbit; he brought them to me, and I needed no better motive for digging, and at the same time to destroy the rabbits which spoil my park. Accordingly, I dug through two burrows; and in my working I found a great many pieces of urns, which had been of diverse shapes, and of different-coloured earth, as white, black, brown, red, and two very small bits of the fine polished red earth, I believe pieces of pateras. I found no whole vessels; but human bones, and bones of beasts, and some pieces of deers' horns, and horses' teeth (as I found formerly in Julabury's grave). I must observe, that the bones and pieces of urns are very rotten, and crumble with handling, which may be the reason we found nothing entire; the rest may be dissolved and incorporated with the earth about them. I found a large bead, of baked earth, perforated from end to end. We found a great deal of wood, coal, and several pieces of iron; some which I believe are pieces of armour; and one which I think was an iron mace, used in battle. It is only the head, with a bit of its handle. I will send you a drawing of it another time. I believe you are satisfied this was a burial-place, and, I think, Roman, by its situation, &c. I think I can trace an antient road along that side of the hill, and which goes through my park by my house, through Wye and Crundale, and so on to Canterbury, and the other way to Charing, and perhaps to Durolenum, which place I shall look after next week. But I must tell you, this place where I have dug is very near the distance between Canterbury and Durolenum in the Itinerary: but the distance would be great from thence to Maidstone and Rochester; and every way we shall find great difficulties in that respect; for Lenham, which some would have to be the place, is 16 or 18 miles from Canterbury, and Durolenum should be but 12 miles from thence; and if we place it where you suppose it should be, it will be yet too far from Canterbury, and a great deal too far from Rochester. But I will use all the diligence and care I can in making some discovery, and shall make designs; as I will do

of

of this place in my park, where I shall have more digging.—It is time to release you.-Pardon blots, repetition, and nonsense; but I have not time to write over my Letter again by this post.

“I am, Sir, your most faithful humble servant, CYNGETORIX." "DEAR CHINDONAX, Eastwell, Oct. 12, 1723. "Though I have reason to believe you had too much of my last long Letter, I must write again, to give you an account of my proceedings upon Wednesday last, when I went with my friend Mr. Creyk in search of Durolanum; some progress I have made, but am not yet at the end of my task (which will be pretty difficult), though I was out many hours, in my chaise, and upon brown Joan. I sent my keeper some days before to Hazlewood-street, as you directed, but no shoemaker or cobler lives there; wherefore Dobson went to Egerton, another town, where he was told there lived an old cobler, and there he found one, who, I believe, is your man: for he said a Physician called there last October, and talked with him about Antiquities, and went over the way (for you was, he says, at a public-house) to see a grandchild of his who was sick you will remember whether this is so. : He be lieves you are something more than mortal; for, that you not only cured the child, but foretold that he would live, and make a bright man, if he would give him learning (which he will certainly do). He says, that, as you foretold, the child's parts are already wonderfully improved, and that he is the cutest boy he ever saw of his age. -This person (John Pemble by name, and by profession a Cobler, and an Anabaptist Teacher), this Rabbi, who by appointment met us at Charing, upon examination, knows of no place where he has heard of any Antiquities, except at Royton Chapel, at about a mile and a half from Lenham on the left hand, and by a river. This description scemed right enough, if the distance is so.

"We went from Charing town to the Heath, about a mile, where we thought we saw your Roman Road, but which leads to the left hand. We went that way for a while; but, seeing no continuance of the Road (if it was Roman), we turned back, and went into our former road upon the Heath, and, at a mile and half beyond Charing, we came upon a road a little raised, which we fancy is the Roman Road--if the other is not, which I should rather take for it. We kept on for above half a mile farther on the Heath, and a little way in a lane, where we turned on our left hand, and went on for about half a mile, when we came to Royton Chapel. We rode up a high bank on the left hand of the road; and among trees stands the little ruin of the Chapel, which I measured, and drew a design of (with some others, which I will send you as soon as drawn fair). I must here observe, that Mr. Creyk, with better eyes than mine, perceived two paving-tiles between the stones of the wall in different places. We pulled them out of the mortar with some difficulty; for the mortar is as hard as the stone. They are singular, and perhaps Roman. After I had drawn this ruin, I made another drawing of it in a less scale, with a prospect of the country.

"We

"We descended into the road again, and on our right hand, over against the ruin, stands an old house called too Royton Chapel; Mrs. Crips, a widow lady, lives in it. I drew its front, but could not bring it into my prospect of the country, because it stands below the bank, which partly hides it, and trees about the ruin hide the rest of it; but I drew it by itself, except that I have added a very little of the country beyond it; and, what is more material, the little river, which has its rise about a mile, or a little more, from hence on this side Lenham, and it runs behind the back front of Mrs. Crips's house, within about 30 yards from it. From hence it runs to the South-west a little by the South (no regard to the variation of the compass); but after that course for some way it turns toward the South-east, and goes by Ashford, &c. At 30 or 40 rods beyond this house we came into the great Rochester road; so that from Charing this way, I think, is as near a road to Rochester as the Lenham road. The river near Mrs. Crips's house is not above three or four feet wide. "You will not find, I doubt, that I have discovered much. The ruin, though little remains, for it is not above (I mean the wall) 16 feet long, and ten feet and a half high, the wall a yard thick a little bit of a cross wall remains-this ruin, I say, seems to be very antient (whether a Chapel or not); but the tiles sticking among the stones of the building must have been taken from some antienter ruins, with which materials this probably was built.-I will send you a Drawing (with the others) of these Tiles, of their proper size, with the work upon them; but must give you a little description of them here, and you may, perhaps, judge whether they are Roman.—I have designed the tiles square, though they are not exactly so, as you will see by the measures set down. They are about eight-tenths of an inch thick. They are glazed, the ground of the work upon them is of a deepish yellow, and the figure is of a very pale yellow. It is all flat work. The tiles were burnt very hard, even almost as any stone; and where one of them has a piece broken off, I see they are of a black earth, as several pieces of the urns which I found in my park. Pray have you met, among any Roman Antiquities, tiles of this sort?

"This is all I have been able to do at this place: whether this can be the place we hunt after, or another (which I intend to go to next week) I cannot tell. But I have tried an experiment, which perhaps may bring me right (if I am not so already): for, seeing the distances in the Itinerary to be 16 miles from Rochester to Durolevi, and from thence 12 miles to Canterbury, I opened two pair of compasses, one to 16, the other to 12 miles, by the scale in Mr. Philpot's Map in 'Villare Cantium,' and set a point of one at Rochester, and a point of the other at Canterbury; I found the other points (upon that Map) meet at a stream which runs into the river that comes from near Lenham, and, running by Royton Chapel, goes to Ashford; and this point is in the Ashford road, within three-tenths of a mile

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